More than Stars
by Amazon-Aviator
Summary: In which a thimble saves a boy's life. Possibly.


**Title:** More than Stars  
**Rating:** G  
**Characters/Pairings:** Peter/Rufio, a bunch of other unimportant kids.  
**Warnings:** Slash, unrequited het, jealous boy-crushes, thimbles.  
**A/N:** An amalgamation of Pan-verses; Primary source is Barrie's Peter Pan, stole Wendy's family tree (but not their characterizations) from Lauren Fox's The Lost Girls, Rufio and Don't Ask (ditto) are borrowed from _Hook_. I don't own any of the aforementioned characters, but Biscuits, Creeps and Bebop are mine.  
**Written as a birthday present for Alisa**

If Peter knew how old he truly was, it would probably send the poor thing into shock. If he had any _desire_ to know, he could probably figure it out on his own if he tried; the concept of time does not mean much in Neverland beyond day and night, high and low tide, but it's not as though he's never been to the mainland. He knows that enough has changed in the uncertain amount of time that has passed since Wendy's day that mothers do not tell stories to their children near as often as they used to (not since the advent of television) and that second story windows, if not barred or locked, are at the very least screened in. He knows the air around the mainland is much thicker than it used to be, and flying in it is rather like flying through mud, only not as fun. He knows that airplanes are a flight hazard. He knows that fairies are an "endangered species."

All of these things mean very little to Peter, however, and he has such a tragically short memory anyway that each time he visits the mainland to fetch a mother, it all seems new to him again. Particularly the screens. Those are very hard to see at night. At least he can hear the airplanes coming.

The simple fact is that by now, Peter should have celebrated well over a hundred birthdays since Wendy's day alone, though exactly how many, we can never know. We can also be sure that of those one hundred-plus birthdays, Peter has not celebrated a _single one_, for to celebrate a birthday is to admit that one is a year older, and I need not explain that Peter would never stand for that. Yet I'd bet my hat that if we left out the bit about getting older, Peter would take to the idea of birthdays quite quickly. We won't tell him though, for a day of fun, games, treats and admiration for the boy himself is not very unlike every day of his curiously long life; we wouldn't like to make his head any bigger. It's quite swollen already.

The point I suppose I am trying to make is that Peter Pan is still very much a boy of his time--whichever time that may be. Boys today are very different than they were a hundred years ago; you'd be hard pressed to find a boy of twelve or thirteen who believed in much of anything with the conviction Peter does. Then again, Peter has always been exceptional in this particular department, even back in Wendy's day. Boys today grow up much too quickly, and no one can quite agree on why this is. Some say television has done it, others say it is the chemicals in the food or water, and even more blame a "collapse of ethics and the overwhelming prevalence of debauchery in society," but good luck finding someone who can explain what that _means_ exactly; it's my personal opinion that no one actually _knows_, they just rather like the way it sounds. Grown ups are strange like that.

Peter is so much a boy of his time that he doesn't know that boys of _our_ time do not all grow up to be judges or doctors or lawmen who work in stuffy offices and wear uncomfortable shoes—a great many _do_, though, and we must pity them—but many boys grow up to play games like cricket and football and get paid a great deal of money for it, while others make their living by playing pretend in movies or television and get wildly popular and are adored all across the world. It seems to me that if Peter knew this, he would not mind growing up so much. Perhaps he has been told already, but got side tracked and has forgotten, as he so often does. I should think that if any of Wendy's progeny had any sense at all, they would have tried this angle already, and I don't doubt that they are all very clever girls. I shan't be the one to remind him; there are so many Lost Boys these days and no one has as much experience leading them as Peter does. I wouldn't want be the one to take him from them.

This isn't to say Peter Pan is a boy completely unchanged: most notably he has exchanged his terribly immodest kilt of leaves for a more sufferable if highly battered ensemble of cut-off jeans and t-shirt at Wendy's great-granddaughter's request to prevent her "from, like, dying of total embarrassment." Why she would object to a boy fluttering around her bedroom wearing naught but a few strategically placed ferns is unknown to Peter, though the rest of us may raise an eyebrow and wonder at the girls before her who apparently had no objections. Regardless, Peter is fond of his Levi's; they are confining, but durable, at the very least. Pockets are also remarkably convenient things, he has discovered.

Perhaps Wendy (for that was her name—let's call her Wendy II so as not to confuse her with her great-grandmother) perhaps Wendy II is indicative of the changes undergoing girls these days, for if there is anything more changed than boys in the last century, it is definitely _girls_. Peter and the Boys have, in recent years, been surprised to find that girls are not quite so…_domestic_ as they used to be. They are a wilder and louder and braver than their ancestors, though just as clever as ever, and many of them don't quite know how to cook or clean or sew and are not at all content to sitting home by the fire darning socks while the boys go out to have their adventures. They are so good at climbing and spitting and fighting and hunting as the boys that it's really rather like having another boy around. They do make an effort though, the dear things, though you and I may suspect that that has less to do with actually wanting to be a _mother_ to the wayward boys than it does with wanting to please _Peter_. For the girls are not _completely_ changed, after all. If there is one thing they all have in common, it is that they have a startling tendency to become completely silly around Peter, biting their bottom lips and batting their eyelashes and twirling their hair; and then increasingly cross and broody and irritable as Peter continues to be completely daft and oblivious. Don't begrudge him, ladies. He's only a boy, after all.

Poor sweet, stupid Peter. Because he is a boy, he doesn't know that every girl he has ever known has fallen madly in love with him. Because he is a boy of his _time_, he doesn't know that some of the boys he has known have done the same.

You and I know that, statistically speaking, we can assume that at least a few of the boys who have made their home on the island have probably looked at Peter with slightly more than stars in their eyes. They would not be as obvious as any of the girls, because boys seek attention by different means than eyelash-battling and silly giggling. In fact, they may not be outwardly distinguishable at all, for all the boys in Peter's band look up to him and seek to please him. Any one of them would take an arrow or blade for him; would sooner perish than betray his trust. They all look to Peter for guidance, for permission, for acceptance. How would one boy who thought the world of him stand out among a group of boys who felt the same, if for a slightly different reason?

The answer is easy. Look at them with a girl in their presence.

We'll use Berry, Wendy's great-_great_-granddaughter. Dark Berry with her short boy's haircut and twiggy limbs in an oversized Mickey Mouse sleep shirt. Berry cannot sew to save her life, and has pricked her fingers so often trying that all the Boys' socks are spotted with her blood. Her cooking is terrible, even the _imaginary_ meals, always burned around the edges and runny on the inside and tasting suspiciously like spinach. Her stories are top-notch though, most of them about a dashing hero from another planet called Superman. The Boys are all _very_ fond of Superman.

Berry is perhaps the most forward of the girls ever brought to the island, and as in love with Peter as any of her predecessors ever were. She has an annoying habit of picking leaves out of his hair even when there are none to pick out, and resting her hand on his arm when she speaks to him, or thimbling him on the cheek when he isn't paying attention. Poor Peter; he knows these are probably things loving mothers do, but they make him fidgety anyway. They're also sure to reveal our mystery boy to us, so let's have a look.

There are no less than a dozen Boys inhabiting Neverland right now; more than half of these are far too small to consider. The first boy in our periphery over the perceived age of eight is Biscuits, a startlingly domestic type who, if we watch closely, can been seen helping Berry with her cooking, both real and imaginary. He can be blamed for the spinach taste; if we confronted him about it, he would assure us that food tasting of spinach is better than the alternative, _thank you very much_. He looks fondly upon Berry and likes to imagine she and Peter playing Wedding so that he can pretend them a pretty wedding cake, so if you think it is Biscuits, you'd be wrong. And shame on you for stereotyping.

Nor is it the sharply dressed Don't Ask in his blindingly visible school jacket, who is the first to tell off a boy if he's begun to dress too much like Peter (if you remember, Peter forbids any of his band too look in the least like him) a job that requires a great deal of effort ever since Peter took up his Levi's, which most boys over the age of two seem to be wearing by default when they reach the island. He privately imagines Berry and Peter playing Wedding as well, so he can think up a dress for Berry made out of butterfly wings and humming bird feathers. I imagine you are beginning to question my integrity by now, but I can assure you, it is not Don't Ask.

It is not the melodious Bebop, who teaches Berry lullabies in Italian to sing to them at bedtime, or the appropriately named Creeps, who brings her pet dragonflies on leashes of spider silk. Any boy who loves Berry in spite of her domestic failures is not the boy we are looking for. In fact, any boy who loves Berry _at all_ is probably not the boy we are looking for. Hello--over there in the corner sulking in the gloom is dark Rufio, with his arms crossed and his chin on his chest. He glares sullenly at the back of Berry's head every time she thimbles Peter's cheek and can be heard grinding his teeth whenever she giggles at him.

Rufio, I think, is our boy. Rufio: Peter's first mate, his second in command, his vice president. Rufio would follow Peter faithfully to the ends of the earth and beyond into the afterlife.

On any other day, Rufio wouldn't be caught dead sulking in the corner like a spoiled child when there are mountains to climb and beasts to slay and adventures to be had. He is always just half a step behind Peter and just as eager; when the smaller boys hesitate and dance awkwardly with fear, Rufio bounds to Peter's side without a second thought.

They are best mates in the sense that they are almost-equals (Peter is still chief, after all) closest together in (perceived) age, and of like (wild, untamed) minds. Peter has never had a best mate before. Oh, he has had fairies and mothers and Boys and archenemies, but never a really-and-truly best mate whom he can trust with his most profound secrets (if he had any) or his life (if it were the sort of thing he thought about). Of course, Peter probably doesn't _realize_ it, poor conceited dear, but this is what they are just the same.

Rufio knows it, and on any _other_ day, he can stand proudly at Peter's side and thrill with admiration and awe and slightly-more-than-stars. On any other day, he can fly _almost_ as easily and skillfully as Peter, for he is _that_ filled with happiness.

But when Berry or some other sorry excuse for a mother is cluttering up the Den with her thinly veiled infatuation for the one-and-only child, it is not Any Other Day.

Rufio is the only one who recognizes Berry's touches and giggles and thimbles for what they really are, but can do nothing about them, because to know something that Peter does not is Against The Rules. He would sooner die than shame Peter, so the wretched boy slouches in a corner and sulks, unable to look away as Berry sidles up to the Boy as he sits at the fire mending his pipes as the rest of the Boys carry on with their own business. She rests her hand upon his knee and pretends to pick bits of bark from his hair as an excuse just to touch it; she tucks a lock of it behind his ear, and lets her arm drop to rest casually over his shoulder. (She is a smooth operator; I'll give her that.) Peter can be heard swallowing nervously; he fidgets and leans away uncomfortably, but Berry will not be deterred so easily. She leans so close their noses almost touch. Rufio's stomach flip-flops and, poor boy, he can't stand to watch it. _Who does this silly girl think she is? _He jumps up and shouts in frustration and kicks the nearest thing to him—one of Biscuits's kettles; it flies across the Den and crashes into the armory with a clatter, scattering their bows and knives and spears across the mossy rug—startling Peter and Berry upright. "Rufio!" they shout simultaneously, Peter with something like relief, Berry with something considerably less so.

"What's the matter with you?" Berry demands, planting fists on her hips in her oft-practiced (but hardly effectual) "stern mother" pose.

Rufio stands awkwardly, suddenly aware that all eyes are on him. He shifts his weight from foot to foot; he doesn't know what _is _the matter with him, poor thing. He knows what Berry is trying to do, but why should he care? It's not as though _he_ can be…what? Peter's Mother? Certainly not.

I would like to say that Rufio will apologize and sit back down, or make an excuse, or simply leave the Den to collect his thoughts and cool down, but he does none of these things. He looks at Berry standing there next to Peter, shameless flirt that she is and, well, if you have ever looked at someone with slightly more than stars in your eyes, you know it can make you do some rather impressively stupid things. Being a child, and a spectacularly wild, lawless one at that, does not help much either.

Rufio looks at Peter, points an accusing finger at Berry and says, "She's _not_ your _mother_."

Berry rolls her eyes as if to say, "_well, duh_," but Peter's eyebrows drop down and darken his clever eyes. If I were Rufio, I would have stopped there, but I am not, and he doesn't. Adrenaline fills him with stupidity and courage, and he carries on. "She doesn't even _want_ to be. She's just going to grow up like all the others, and be someone _else's_ mother, and if she had her way, _she'd make you grow up too!_"

Peter, silly forgetful creature that he is, should know this. In fact, maybe he does, but you or I or Rufio or Berry have trouble knowing what is a game to Peter and what is real, since his real and his games are one and the same. He knows one thing though: Rufio has dishonored Berry, and – boyish as she is – she is still a lady. Peter draws his knife with a flourish and waves it in Rufio's face.

"Take it back!" he growls

Rufio's mouth drops open in shock; Peter does not even _doubt_ Berry, he does not even turn to her and question her _is this true?_ He leaps to her defense so quickly, Rufio is suddenly, deadly sure whose side Peter's would take in a quarrel. Even if he did not look at Peter with something slightly-more-than-stars, it would still hurt just as bad. He own best mate! His partner in mischief, his cohort! For a girl? And a rather annoying one at that?

"No," Rufio says, puffing his out his chest and making his voice as steady as he can manage under the circumstances. "I," he starts, then, "You," and, "But she," but what is there to say?

"Take it back, or you're banished," Peter threatens, and worst of it all, Rufio rather thinks he's showing off for Berry. The younger boys gasp in horror—mothers come and go, but Rufio is there always—but Peter silences them with a hiss.

"Over a girl? Really?" Rufio wonders aloud in a very small voice. If this is a new game, he doesn't quite know what his part in it is. He looks at Berry, and he expects her to look at him in haughty triumph or disgust or at least wag her finger at him in that infuriating way of hers, but she doesn't. She looks rather confused, and squints at him, as if trying to look through him to the other side.

"Peter?" she says, as if she isn't sure of his name.

Even then he doesn't turn to her and ask if it's true. Rufio knows he hasn't got a chance, and, remember what it is I said about doing stupid things? Well.

"If you like her so much then maybe you should _marry_ her!" Rufio spits with uncharacteristic venom. "Maybe _you_ should go! _Maybe you should just grow up!_"

"_Get out!"_ roars Peter. The little ones cover their ears against his loudness.

"Fine! I don't need you anyway!" Which is, of course, a lie.

"_Fine!"_

"**Okay!"**

"_**GO!!"**_

Rufio looks around the Den, frowning, and storms off before anyone can see the tears pricking or his lip trembling.

"Don't ever come back!" Peter calls after him in a way that implies he might actually want Rufio to come back and fight with him some more. "Or you'll be sorry!"

For the first half hour of his banishment, Rufio is so angry at Peter, he sits right down on a rock and thinks up all the things he can do to spite him. Oh, if he ran away and grew up, wouldn't Peter be sorry then! To let Time hold onto him for a few years; to face Peter again, bigger and meaner and rotting inside with hate and jealousy, what sweet revenge that would be! The look on Peter's face when he…when…. Would Peter even recognize him? Would he even remember his best mate Rufio? Or would he have erased him? Peter never remembers things he doesn't want to remember. Perhaps when they met again Rufio would be Just Another Grownup, not even important enough to dent Peter's heart. Then it would all have been for naught.

Rufio slides to the forest floor to rest his forehead on his dirty knees. He is suddenly irrationally hungry and cold and uncomfortable and lonely. And _wet_—it _would_ start raining the moment he hasn't got a place to sleep for the night, wouldn't it? In less than a minute, he's sitting in a very squishy, cold mud puddle, so he climbs back up on the rock. This is all he does until sunset, and as everyone knows, Neverland can be a very frightening place after dark. If Rufio cared much, he might be frightened. Instead he contemplates ways in which he can die horrible, deserving deaths. Maybe a wandering bear will happen upon him and eat him up, or maybe he'll starve first and the Neverbirds will pick his bones clean, or maybe it'll rain so hard for so long that the Mysterious River will swell and the forest will flood and he'll drown. There's always pirates, of course. Death by pirates is sure to include plank-walking and being eaten by sharks, or being drowned, or _both_. All of these fates seem too good for him: he has betrayed Peter Pan, and he deserves to suffer for as long as humanly possible for his crime.

Well. Sitting on a rock in the rain all night is a good a start as any.

Morning wakes Rufio with the raucous calls of what must be a hundred angry Neverbirds threatening to roost on his head. He sits up and brushes the sleep from his eyes and chases his nightmares back under the logs from whence they came and he realizes that the sound is closer to _eighty-five_ angry Neverbirds threatening to roost on his head and two dozen rowdy boys under the age of thirteen crashing through the Wood in pursuit of adventure. Rufio checks his person for bird poop or any other undesirables that may have taken up residence in his clothes during the night (he finds a small mouse in his pocket, but decides to keep it) when Peter bursts through the undergrowth and skids to a halt an arm's length from Rufio.

Rufio searches Peter's dirty face in a panic, and for one terrifying moment, he thinks he'll see that vague look Peter gets when he happens across someone he doesn't recognize. _He forgot me already_, he thinks with his heart in his stomach, but Peter hasn't forgotten at all. He stands straight with arms crossed and looks down his little nose at Rufio.

"Well," he says, quite haughtily, "I see you didn't get very far."

Rufio can think of nothing to excuse his behavior, at least nothing that wouldn't make Peter madder than he is already. What he does next is the act of a truly desperate, cornered creature; he knows in the half-second between thinking it up and actually _doing_ it that it will probably get him killed-- or at least banished _again_. It will probably make Peter despise him even more, but at least he will have done it once before he dies.

Grabbing Peter roughly by the shoulders, Rufio dives forward and thimbles the one-and-only child right on the mouth.

He knows instantly that he's done it wrong: their noses meet with a crash and Peter, probably thinking Rufio meant him harm, sways backward far enough that his sandals leave the ground and he hovers defensively in midair. Rufio lets him go and hangs his head shamefully—his one chance and he's botched it! He swipes at his face with his sleeve and sighs, then stands tall with his head held high, puffs out his chest, takes his last look at Peter (looking comically stricken and confused) and his home, and closes his eyes.

"Well," he says after a moment, when death doesn't come, "What are you waiting for?"

Peter's shadow fills the backs of his eyelids, and he can smell him close—only Peter smells like the Milky Way—but instead of running him through, he thimbles Rufio back.

Rufio's dark eyes snap open; his field of vision is filled by Peter's smug, grinning face—he had the good sense to tilt his head to the side, and he knows it. Peter is floating a few inches in the air with his hands stuffed casually in his pockets as if nothing at all is amiss.

"But-" Rufio starts, and Peter cuts him off.

"I'm not going to kill you, stupid." He draws up his thin legs and sits cross-legged in midair, resting his elbows on his knees. "I never killed another Boy. Not unless they grow up, anyway." As if doubtful, he glides forward and inspects Rufio's face closely for several minutes. For half a moment, he is quite sure Peter means to thimble him again, but instead, Peter runs his thumb over Rufio's chin before nodding and knuckling him gently in the jaw. "You're clean."

Rufio begins to laugh nervously but Peter's face goes solemn and he holds up a hand to silence him. "You're still banished, though."

Rufio's heart drops into his stomach. "Oh."

"But only for a day."

"Oh!"

"Until after I take Berry home."

Rufio bristles. That girl!--he crosses his arms and turns his back on Peter. Peter glides around to Rufio's front, and Rufio turns on him again.

"Oh, knock it off." Peter hangs upside down over Rufio's head, face-to-inverted-face. "She's not _that_ bad."

"She is _too_," Rufio pouts.

"Yeah, she kinda is, isn't she?" Peter grins rakishly, showing all his pretty teeth. He slips around right side up and lets his feet come to rest on the forest floor. "She's kinda terrible, actually."

"You _think_?" Rufio scoffs. Really, whatever took him so long to figure it out?

"You know what I think?" Peter asks, looking very smug.

"What?" It would be wrong of us to pretend that Peter is much of a thinker, but Rufio is curious, especially when Peter slips his dirty hand into Rufio's and tugs him close.

"I think best mates are better anyway."

They thimble again, and this time, they're both quite prepared. Rufio doesn't have time to wonder at Peter calling him his best mate; he'll save that to savor later when Peter's starry scent isn't overpowering his senses and making him dizzy and weightless with happiness. Funny how their hearts pound like they've just escaped danger and their faces flush with triumph like they've just won a battle. So strange, how something so new feels so familiar, and it tastes rather like…like-

"Adventure," Peter says drowsily against Rufio's mouth.

I can assure you, there never was a prettier thing in Neverland. You may wonder at their contentment to thimble politely and touch fingertips for hours as if there were nothing more important to do, but you must remember that these boys are not the same breed we have on the mainland. They have never hidden dirty magazines under their mattresses, or stumbled upon suspicious cable channels in the wee hours of the night, and if you mentioned to them the Internet, they would think you meant to go fishing. The voyeurs among us would like to offer them a few hints—boys, there is ever so much more to you than fingers and lips!—but please, let them figure it out on their own. Rushing children is what makes them grow up too fast. Rushing and long division, or so I am told.

The romantics among us would be quite content to leave them as they are, for we now know that Rufio is no longer banished, and Berry, despite her Herculean efforts, has been exactly as successful as her mother was, and her mother's mother, and so on down the line. Berry will be forgotten come next Spring Cleaning, but don't feel badly for her; it's not Rufio's fault. Peter would have forgotten her anyway. He is so good at forgetting them. If you are curious to know, Berry will get on quite well without him. (Between you and I: on the night of Rufio's banishment, after all the little ones were tucked in for bed, it was Berry who confided in Peter that nobody really _needs_ a mother after all. They are quite nice to have, but if one is so set on playing House and a mother is not available, one can get along just as well with, say, two _fathers_ instead. Of course if you asked him, Peter would say it was _his_ idea, and a brilliant one at that.) She will grow up to become one of those uncommon Amazonian beauties; tall and straight and strong and clever, and she will have quite good luck with the boys, as you may have guessed. She may even have quite good luck with the girls as well, but this is not her story after all, so you will just have to wonder.

However, the skeptics among us may question Peter's sincerity in this endeavor. You may wonder if it is true or make believe to Peter, and fear for poor Rufio's heart, though if you have, you have forgotten that they are the same to him. He also bores very easily, so I can promise he wouldn't play at something for so long if he didn't like it. Ah, but that is not quite the same as loving Rufio, is it? Well, maybe Peter has never looked at anyone with slightly more than stars in his eyes but his very own reflection, but I offer this last thought to you: ever since he was a tiny baby living in Kensington Gardens, girls have thimbled Peter and tried to win his heart, and he has forgotten them all.

Yet you can be sure that he always remembers his best mate.


End file.
